


The Choice

by Amoreanonyname



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Canon Compliant, Codependency, Codependent Winchesters (Supernatural), First Time, Hints of Psychic!Sam, M/M, Mild Smut, POV Sam Winchester, Quote: Sam and Dean Winchester are psychotically irrationally erotically codependent on each other, Season/Series 15 Spoilers, Soulmates, Soulmates Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester, Swearing, Wincest - Freeform, hints of dark!Sam
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:00:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25655560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amoreanonyname/pseuds/Amoreanonyname
Summary: "This is real. This is real. A glowing thread through Sam’s psyche, surrounded by tricks and lies and manipulation and “destiny”. Whether they were engineered by Chuck himself to bethis way, whether their souls simply refused to be parted, refused to turn on each other. Whether they were just that fucked up all on their own somehow. Of all the things they’d done over the years, all the things they’d tried, they’d never attempted to stick to their convictions. Their real convictions. What they were both certain was a wrong choice they couldn’t stop making. Maybe every fibre of their being screamed at them not because it was wrong, but because it was just the truth."Sam drinks, thinks, and comes to some important conclusions.
Relationships: Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester
Comments: 13
Kudos: 92





	The Choice

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not sure what I think of this, as it's pretty stream-of-consciousness even for me. But on the other hand, I feel like Sam is being pretty stream-of-consciousness himself, so hopefully it works out.

Sam sat in the darkened library, staring into his whiskey as if it would give him an answer. He thought for a moment that if Dean got up and saw him, he’d worry - it was rare for Sam to dig into the hard stuff on his own - before pushing the thought away.

For the hundredth, possibly thousandth, time, Sam went over the facts in his mind, as if something new would ever come of it.

Chuck wasn’t going to stop until they killed each other. Or until they stopped him. Chuck was also rapidly ending worlds, and had heavily implied ending theirs.

Stopping him. This thing with Jack wasn’t going to work. Something about angel hearts, swallowing the Garden of Eden? This all would somehow lead to Jack killing Chuck, via some other steps no one but Billie knew about yet? Sam knew it in his gut. He and Dean and Cas weren’t asking nearly enough questions, because they wanted to believe it could work. If they could trust Jack, trust Billie, it could work. But there were too many bad signs. Sam knew what it meant when an ancient force suddenly decided to be on your side, started pushing you to do bad things, telling you it would lead to good. He knew what it meant to trust someone who only spoke in riddles, only gave half the information, let you make your choices in the dark. 

Whatever Billie was, she wasn’t really on their side. Sam suddenly missed Crowley. At least he was upfront enough that they _knew_ he’d double-cross them somehow, and they could decide to take the deal anyway.

Killing - killing each other. The bile rose in Sam’s throat at the thought of it. But he had to acknowledge, it was ridiculous on its face. If it was the world in the balance, why _shouldn’t_ they kill each other? Just because it would make them unhappy? Because they didn’t want to, because they were both tired of kowtowing to whatever pre-destined bullshit was thrown at them? If killing each other made it go away, shouldn’t they just do it? 

Jack, for them? The world, for them? Rowena, for them? Eileen, for them? Everyone, so that Sam and Dean could be spared the pain? So they wouldn’t have to be sad? So that they wouldn’t have to eat dirt and follow the rules one final time? 

Sam shook himself a bit. It was more than _sad_ \- if he ever had to end his brother’s life in cold blood, he didn’t know what he’d be after that, but he’d never recover. Forcibly, he remembered a few years ago. Dean, with a brother-killing mark and brother-killing rage and the entire goddamn universe in the balance _then_ if he didn’t do it - and when the moment came, actually _killed Death_. 

As Sam ran along the familiar track, a new thought struck him. Had Dean actually _chosen_ to do that? 

Souls are powerful. 

Sometimes they drown in the things they don’t talk about. 

Even if they did choose - “choose” - to do it, could they even? 

What happens when someone tries to kill their soulmate? Was it something they could even do?

When Dean even said the words out loud, Sam’s first instinct was to kill God instead. To _kill God_.

When Chuck showed him the end, his first instinct, his knee-jerk, no matter what else was happening, no matter what he and Dean turned into, was _yes, this. This. I take this, I choose this._ The questioning came after.

 _Then let it end!_ Words that Sam never remembered hearing, but somehow, in a weird way, always associated with Dean, seeping into his consciousness when he dreamed of the two of them, night after night. Dean’s first instinct, facing a world without Sam. 

How often were Dean’s instincts wrong? 

Hunting meant trusting your instincts - but they’d never actually trusted that one, even as they kept caving into it. 

The conundrum, put to them over and over for more than ten years now: the world, or each other. They couldn’t exist together in an intact universe, not according to Chuck. They’d pushed off the Apocalypse for over ten years now. Ten more years for humanity to keep living, breathing, falling in love, laughing and crying and doing what humans did. 

And the answer, deep in Sam’s chest, that he rarely was ever willing to speak out loud. _Give up Dean to save the world - no!_ He could never do it, knew Dean could never do it, knew what they’d both choose in a heartbeat, knew what they’d always chosen, without a second’s hesitation, no matter what the fallout, no matter how many people had to die. The choice their father made, the choice their mother made, the choice that was wrong and selfish and left them feeling obligated to fix it afterwards, but they knew damn well they’d do it again. 

_This is real_. This is real. A glowing thread through Sam’s psyche, surrounded by tricks and lies and manipulation and “destiny”. Whether they were engineered by Chuck himself to be _this way_ , whether their souls simply refused to be parted, refused to turn on each other. Whether they were just that fucked up all on their own somehow. Of all the things they’d done over the years, all the things they’d tried, they’d never attempted to stick to their convictions. Their real convictions. What they were both certain was a wrong choice they couldn’t stop making. Maybe every fibre of their being screamed at them not because it was wrong, but because it was just the truth. 

What if they just did, open-eyes, choose each other? If Chuck wanted it to end, _let it end._ What if they, for the first time, not in the heat of a moment, not when pushed to extremes, not with conditions or regrets or caveats or attempts to fix it later, just calmly, deliberately, spoke their truth into the universe?

Sam and Dean would not kill each other, and they would not be parted. 

_Lives would end_ , the ever-shrinking rational part of Sam’s brain reminded him. This decision - _his_ decision - could, probably would, end the world. Every life on Earth, gone. Saving people was what they did, the value inculcated into them both since childhood, the one thing that separated them from the things they hunted. If they still cared about being separated from the things they hunted.

The larger, primal, don’t-take-my-soulmate-from-me part of Sam’s being spoke louder. _People would die because of Chuck, not because of them_. If Chuck vowed to end the world if he or Dean didn’t hold their breath underwater for ten minutes, if they didn’t grow three feet taller tomorrow, if they didn’t suddenly turn purple and learn to fly, was it their fault? Was that really on them? Should they keep pretending _killing each other_ was possible, something they should feel guilty for not doing? It just meant Chuck liked playing with them before killing them. If saving the world meant them doing something impossible, then _let it end_. 

Everyone who wanted the world to end wanted them apart. Everyone trying to save it looked for another way.

What kind of fucked up God made brother killing brother the righteous decision? 

Saving people was a value they’d learned. But the other thing ran deeper. They could abandon _saving people_. The other thing was the entirety of their being. They may as well try to change their DNA.

 _Make Him play your game_. They set the terms. Let Chuck decide. Whatever the consequences, live with them squarely, knowing that, truly, this was their choice. 

Sam had his answer. With a surge of anxiety, because he wasn’t fully sure Dean would be on board. Except, he already knew Dean was. It was the choice they’d both already made, every time. 

With the courage of his convictions that only three (four) glasses of whiskey could bring him, Sam strode to Dean’s room. This conversation couldn’t wait.

Sam was in the bed and under the covers before Dean was even fully awake. He opened his eyes, then abruptly closed them again when confronted with a face-full of Sam, pressing in. Sam pressed his lips to Dean’s, his hands to Dean’s neck, holding him in place, surging forward, surging closer, teeth and tongue and nails, clawing under layers of clothes, trying to join them the way they should have always been joined, the way they were meant to be. 

“Sam, Sammy-” Dean gasped out, finally able to get an inch of space. Sam felt embarrassed, though perhaps not as much as he should have. 

“I’m choosing you, Dean.” 

“Huh?”

It was his gauntlet, his line in the sand, his last stand, his declaration, his benediction. Sam, with most of a pre-law degree, on his final appeal to the highest court, now willing to take the judgment meted out. For him, for Dean. He would - and yes, probably he would - die on this hill.

“Chuck, Dean. You - you kill me or I kill you. Or He ends it all. That’s what He wants. I’m not doing it. I’m not playing. I’m not gonna kill you, you’re not gonna kill me, we’re not gonna leave each other. Let them all die if that’s what He wants. That’s my choice. _Let it end_.” 

Dean leaned back into his pillow, and Sam watched in the dark, as his shock turned to horror, and then to acceptance, and then a smile spread over his face, as if Sam had just finally given permission. Dean reached over, seized Sam by the hair, and leaned in hungrily. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading everyone! Feedback always welcome!


End file.
